


We Remember Differently

by flash0flight



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Budapest, Headcanon, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flash0flight/pseuds/flash0flight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Clint are sent to Budapest on a mission, but everything goes horribly wrong, and Natasha is found fighting to save her partner before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Remember Differently

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely headcanoned idea made by my [Hawk](http://viperf0x.tumblr.com) about the events that occurred in Budapest. Written from Nat's point of view.

For her first mission with free reign, it seemed pretty straightforward. Infiltrate, play their roles, pretend. Natasha was particularly good at that. At masks. Hell, she’d been trained as a spy for years before SHIELD had even heard of her. The country was in an uproar from before they’d even arrived, protests shaking the streets on a daily basis. Their covers as international advisors in aid of the political crisis fit all too well considering the situation.

Needless to say, everything had been suspicious to the woman from the get-go. But SHIELD seemed to have a decent handle on things; if anything they had planned their covers to conveniently fit the situation just to make things flow smoothly.

Two weeks in and her partner was beginning to grow restless. Clint’s instincts were running wild, suspecting the ease of their mission. That was something she could understand; Natasha’d had her own share of hitched missions in her time before SHIELD. And in their line of work you learn that if something seemed too good to be true, it usually is. Not long after the agent’s distress, her own had risen to the surface. Things were settling down too quietly. The ease spreading through the air as the riots faded too calm. For a country that had been in such unrest for such a time, it wasn’t right.

But, Fury’s orders were another week. And another week they stayed. It was the first time Natasha learned that sometimes their fearless director’s instincts were wrong.

How their covers had been blown, the new agent wasn’t sure. There could be any number of causes for it, but none really seemed important enough for her to consider while shooting at government officials and ducking from bullets all too often. She and her partner had been cornered in the large office area with shots being fired from all directions. Both the government security and the damn terrorist cell were looking for blood, and as talented as the two assassins may be, there was only so much they could handle on their own. Especially considering they’d been caught undercover and neither were carrying more than their handguns and a few extra clips. They were running out of options. Fast.

“ Cover me! “ Natasha hissed as she tossed her gun to Clint, the man catching it deftly with one hand and shooting at both sides, not pausing for a moment to consider just what his partner was planning. Meanwhile, Natasha had kicked the fire extinguisher off the wall behind them and was attaching it to a desk chair they’d pushed out of the way when hastily electing which desk would be best to turn over as their cover. Completing the makeshift distraction by preparing a strange clamp with some pens and elastic bands, Natasha glanced at her partner for a moment, nudging his leg with her foot to alert him to be ready for a shock.

With quick, practiced movements, Natasha set the clamp on the handle of the extinguisher and pushing it out into the middle of the area. There was the briefest moment where both sides where utterly confused and caught unawares by its sudden appearance and the slight trickle of white gas from the nozzle, courtesy of the weak clamp. It was enough, though, to utterly catch someone out there by surprise, shots firing a fraction of a moment before shouts of protest rang out through the room. It was too late, though; the pressure of the canister did its job as the rounds hit home. Natasha dragged Clint down behind the desk just in time as the room erupted into chaos.

The archer was staring at her in a mixture of surprise, amusement, and pride as Natasha shifted onto her feet in a crouch, wound up and ready for action. With a grin in his direction, she nodded before diving out into the insanity and the white mist left in the room thanks to the fire extinguisher. Heading in the direction of the government agents, Natasha leapt gracefully at the nearest man, not taking a moment to care about the fact that she was still dressed in her undercover wear which was painfully formal, and flipping to wrap her legs around his neck. Using the momentum she continued to push her legs, toppling the man over and flipping upright again as he landed on the ground with a sickening crunch.

Without another moment to lose, she was off through the corridor. And the government agents were following her without hesitation. Astounding that she could down a man with her legs like that and security still thought that thundering after her in a herd of rage was going to make a difference.

Sidestepping nimbly into an office around the corner of the corridor, Natasha waited in the dark for the men to sprint past her like the idiots they were. Slipping out before the last agent could pass the door, she took him down with a simple blow to the head and a swipe of his feet, utterly ignoring the way her pencil skirt was hiking up at most of her movements. She’d been through worse with less on. The thud of the body falling to the floor caught the attention of men who had passed so quickly, all turning to see the redhead sporting a wicked grin. They were exactly where she wanted them.

Launching herself forward, it was all too easy to use their bigger builds against them inside a cramped corridor, especially with her lithe size. She rushed to disarm the first man, using him as a shield against the bullets that were flying through the air from the men behind him. The hallway was far too narrow for anything to hit her, though. A crushing hit to the jaw had the man out like a light, and the moment she had an opening Natasha was shooting the unconscious agent’s gun with pinpoint precision. Each man who had chased after her was down in moments. Natasha did not miss a single shot.

Just as she was about to sweep them for their guns and any extra clips they may have, Nat heard a sickening cry of pain in an all too familiar voice. Compromising by picking up another gun instead of doing a search of the bodies, Natasha sprinted back through the corridor, guns up at the ready for any misfortunate asshole who came across her. Getting in the way of Black Widow when she was determined as hell to get back to her partner was not the wisest idea.

When she returned to the office area, Clint was no-where to be found. The white mist was fading, the room had fallen silent. The terrorists were gone, and they had taken her partner along with them.

Her heart fell immediately as Natasha began to sweep the room, looking for Clint wherever he could possibly have ended up. Their two guns were discarded on the ground, the briefcase Clint had been using as part of his cover outfit was still propped up against the wall. Other than that, there was no sign of him. Not a thing. No terrorists either. How unfortunate. The first thing Natasha wanted to do was shoot something.

If they’d taken him alive, they wanted something from him. Information of some form. And they didn’t seem like the kind of people who would bother asking nicely. Her heart fell even further. Leaving him out on his own was not an option. Nat owed him her life a few times over by now. She had to get out and she had to find him.

 

The solid Hungarian echoed through the room as more security entered, and Natasha could not help but pull an expression of a mixed smirk and wince. She’d caught the easy way out, getting caught by the government rather than the terrorists. But it meant her partner was going through hell instead of her.

More security were entering the area by the moment, slowly surrounding her. She could try to fight her way out, but there were too many of them. She would never make it out of the room. Escape wasn’t an option; after this it was probably an accurate guess that the building was surrounded. Without a single word, Natasha lowered the two guns slowly, setting them on the ground before standing back up, her hands up in the air in surrender. It was the fastest way for the woman to get through the inevitable and get out of there. And the sooner she got out of there, the better. Not for her, but for Clint.

\--

‘My first fucking mission on my own, and I blew it. Hill’s going to have my ass. Hell, if I was them, I’d leave me here with these government morons.’

Natasha wasn’t listening to the man in front of her, she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the guards stationed around the room. Apparently she warranted a need for three guards in the room and two more at the door outside, which was just downright offensive. Or it would be if she could force herself to give a damn.

While she was stuck in that godforsaken building without any resources and no way to contact SHIELD and get what she would need to find her partner, all Natasha could do was think about how utterly fucked she was, and just how she was going to track him down. It all depended on the terrorist cell. The way they worked. How sloppy they were in their methods. Who the mastermind behind it all was. One way or another, Natasha would find a clue. She always did.

She had to get out of here first.

The man was beginning to scream in her face, demanding answers, believing the shock treatment would scare Natasha into telling the truth. Instead, the woman simply deadpanned and repeated the same thing she always did when they got too close and irritating.

“ My name is Laura Matthers, I’m twenty-six years old, I work for the US Government. My coworker, Ethan Turner, and I were sent to Budapest as international advisors in aid of the political crisis. Mr. Turner is now missing. “

It earned her another slap to the face – apparently Hungarian officials were less concerned about leaving bruises on their prisoners and more concerned about finding answers. What they didn’t know what that Natasha had been raised to withstand pain; a slap from some pansy who called himself an agent and strutted about behind the table yelling wasn’t much of a threat.

Though, that only reminded her of everything Clint must be going through on his end. They were running out of time.

The door creaked open as a guard stepped inside with a phone in his hand, giving her interrogator a message in quick Hungarian. The man’s eyebrows rose for a moment before he snatched the phone up with a sour expression.

 

A grin crept across her face as Natasha listened, the man obviously oblivious to her wide range of lingual skills. Chances were that was Coulson on the other end of the line attempting, or pretending, to negotiate the release of one Laura Matthers.

 

A few more words came through the phone, silencing the man and drawing a smirk across his features before he hung up the phone, tossing it back to the guard and clasping his hands behind his back.

“ You have been abandoned, Ms. Matthers. “ He spat in her direction, the smirk growing by the moment. “ ‘Do what you will, she’s no longer our concern,’ Those were their exact words. “

Oh the sweet relief Natasha felt at those words. She’d long since memorized SHIELD’s various codes and signals, signs to follow when in distress. And Coulson had just given her the green light to get the hell out of there and contact them sooner than as soon as possible. It was time to move.

“ Do you hear me, little girl? “ The man snarled as he set his hands on the table, leaning forward to drawl in her face. “ You have been left behind. Your only hope is—“

It was beautiful to see the way an enemy’s entire demeanor would change when they realized she was so much more than they thought. Before the smirk had faded away, Natasha had jerked forward, striking the man’s forehead with her own. The cry of pain was satisfying, spurring her on as she leapt up from her seat. The idiots had forgotten to bind her hands.

There was always some way in which they made these things far too easy.

The guard to her left rushed towards her, but his strike was dodged with ease, closely followed by her own blow to his stomach, followed with a kick to his ribs. Natasha could feel the bones crack under the impact as the man howled in pain. Another was on her, an arm wrapping around her neck in hopes of subduing her. Nat sank her teeth into the flesh of the arm in front of her, unrelenting even as the man screamed out, before snapping her head back to break his nose. The third guard was rushing towards her from the door, expression full of rage. It was all too easy to use the table as leverage to launch herself at the man, her legs wrapping around his neck and throwing him to the ground as she regained her balance in the process.

Her interrogator was scrambling away aimlessly as Natasha turned to him. The idiot managed to back himself into a corner as she approached, whimpering pathetically and begging in stuttered Hungarian, pleading for mercy.

Mercy was not Natasha’s strong point. Especially not considering how much time they had wasted bullshitting around with their feeble form of interrogation. One hand taking hold of the scruff of the man’s collar, she hauled him up to his feet and pushed him against the wall, glowing green eyes staring at him harshly as he spluttered and gasped.

 

Natasha spat in disgust as she drove her fist into his stomach. Letting him go as he cried out in pain, she grabbed his head as he doubled over and drove it into the wall, knocking him out cold.

Within minutes she had searched all four bodies, picking up a loaded handgun, extra clips, and a phone. It’d be good for one call before she’d toss it, but that one call would be enough to get her what she needed. Rather than facing the guards outside, Natasha eyed the room, catching sight of a narrow vent that should be her ticket out of there.

Clint would be proud. Vents were usually his thing.

\--

“ Agent Romanoff, if you’ll give me a minute—“

“ No, Coulson, it can wait. Listen—“

Natasha practically growled in frustration as her hands curled into tight fists, struggling to keep her voice down. The redhead was cooped up in a phone-box, arguing with her handler over what steps to take next. Getting out of the government building had been easy, calling the emergency SHIELD line all the more so before they’d directed her to the appropriate public phone and she had tossed her borrowed mobile. Finding the right phone? Not a problem.

Dealing with an angry Coulson, though, was always difficult.

She knew she was in trouble, she knew she was responsible for Clint’s capture. It was her fault. The last thing she should have done was separate herself from him; they were a team, they needed to work together, and she knew it. But a lecture could wait until she’d saved her partner’s ass. Every moment they wasted was another moment Clint spent in god only knew what kind of hell.

“ I know I’m in the shit. But whatever you want to do to me can wait, Coulson. I gotta find him. “ She hurried on quietly, trying not to attract attention from any passers-by.

“ Calm down, kid. You’re not accountable for any of this. “

“ Don’t call me—wait, what? “

“ As it stands, you are not responsible for this. And it now falls to you to get Agent Barton back to safety. Do you understand, Romanoff? “

Natasha blinked absently for a moment, staring at the payphone in front of her. It was her first mission without supervision and she had botched it completely, possibly cost her partner his life, and she was getting away with it? Maybe when they got home, when Clint was safe, they were going to spring it on her there. She wouldn’t be surprised.

“ Natasha. “

“ Yes, sir. Understood. “

“ Good. Tell me what you need. “

\--

Coulson hadn’t skimped on supplies. Not once he realized how utterly serious Natasha was about her rescue mission. She’d requested the minimum extraction and investigation team, a steady but simple supply of firearms, her specialized stingers that sat on her wrists, and Clint’s bow, among a set of tech that would help her with her search. The team they sent her was small enough to stay out of her way but useful enough to assist her in the search. And as much as Natasha struggled to work in teams, it was much easier to cover ground with a team at hand. Not to mention they listened to her without question. Whether that was by Coulson’s direction or because they were terrified of her – and from what she could gather it could be either or – she didn’t particularly care.

Whoever these guys were, though, they were good. Even with Natasha pulling every trick she had, hunting down contacts from days before SHIELD – and believe it or not, she had some contacts in Budapest – using every scrap of information and investigation they had, it still wasn’t enough. She was collecting tidbits, little pieces of information that, in some obscure way, could link up to something useful.

But there were gaps. Chunks missing. Things she just couldn’t seem to get her hands on, no matter how she investigated, who she asked, what she tried. It wasn’t until day three that she managed to pin down something concrete.

It was somewhere near midnight and Natasha had just snuck via the window into their makeshift base; an apartment in a building situated in a quiet end of the city. It was far away enough from the riots to avoid attention, but close enough to keep them close at hand if the situation changed. She’d spent the better part of the day searching for information, picking up an extremely discrete tip in the early hours of the morning and running with it.

It was like finding a stray thread and pulling on it; everything seemed to unravel before her eyes. Natasha found a whole trail of information, moving along it with extreme care, bit by bit. It hadn’t been easy to find, but everything had been so well hidden so far that she had to wonder why this one was suddenly so readily accessible.

A plant? No… that would be stupid. Wouldn’t it?

Setting herself down at the tiny desk, Natasha set the file down on the surface, the file with bits and pieces of information she’d collected throughout the day. Snapshots she’d taken here and there, notes of things she’d picked up while shadowing a pair in conversation, a list of possible fronts, chains, everything she’d suddenly found as though the organization were simply springing out of the ground.

The longer she stared at the images, at the notes, at everything before her, the more the pieces began to fit together. All she had collected in the past few days was beginning to make more sense, mingled in with that which she had just found. Things were leading somewhere. A front of a shop that was actually for trading information, a safehouse with the front of a motel. Everything had a paper trail that had been buried underneath a world of information.

But the more Natasha sifted through each piece of data, the closer she got, until finally she reached a destination. A base, of sorts.

A bathhouse on the edge of town. Secluded enough to stay under the radar, to keep from attracting attention if they were to indulge in anything out of the ordinary. Like kidnapping and torturing an agent.

Her eyes widened, fixed on the final piece of information. The key to everything. To bringing her partner home. In the back of her mind she could see how his arrow had fixed on her that day, the intent he’d had in his eyes to shoot it right through her head. Only to pause, to be distracted by something. The confliction in his eyes. The change of heart. The fact that he had given Romanoff another chance. Another life.

Enough was enough. Natasha was bringing him out of there. Alive.

\--

The place was insanely guarded. Mercenaries were everywhere. Guarding every entrance, every vent, every gap, everything. The more time Natasha spent skipping from shadow to shadow, remaining invisible as she investigated the large bathhouse her information had lead her to, the more infuriated she grew. Getting in was going to be hell.

But, hey. Natasha had faced hell before.

“ Agent Romanoff, return to base and—“

“ Not a chance, Coulson. I’m here, I’m armed to the teeth, hell I’ve even got his bow, and I know he’s in there. I’m not putting this off any longer, you hear me? “ She growled into the com, knowing she was going to get it for that. Maybe now, maybe later. It didn’t matter. There was the slightest window for her to take, and if she didn’t take it now it might not be there later.

Apparently, if Coulson was going to grill her for this, it was going to be later.

“ Watch your back, Romanoff. “

“ You got it, sir. “

There was a guard pacing back and forth in front of an air vent on the side of the building. It looked just big enough for her lithe build to fit into, but small enough for the guy to think that he was wasted on such a point. Enough so that he wasn’t paying any attention as a tranq dart was shot silently from her position, lodging itself in his shoulder. The man pulled the dart out quickly, but it was too late; seconds later, his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground.

Natasha darted out of the shadows and over to the body, searching quickly for anything of use before dragging him to a nearby storage cupboard and dumping him in there. The poor guy would be so confused when he came to and all of his friends were either dead or captured just like he was.

Pulling the cover of the vent off was easy but painfully slow-going, trying to avoid any unnecessary noise. The last thing she could afford was to get spotted this early on, and silence was key to her invisibility. Once it was off she carefully pulled herself into it, maneuvering herself awkwardly in the small area so she could wedge the cover of the vent back into place. It was a tight fit with the case and quiver on her back, both brought along specifically for Clint to use if he was in any state to do so on the way out.

Moving through air-vents was all too familiar to her, and Natasha knew exactly how to shift to remain silent and still make her way swiftly into the building. The one thing that really troubled her was the idea of trying to figure out just where they were holding her partner. Guess work was a pain in the ass, but it had to be done.

Choosing an empty storage room to exit the vents, Natasha took a brief moment to stretch out before heading towards the door, opening it very slightly to peek outside.

Two men patrolling, one in each corridor, meeting at the corner before turning and stepping away from each other to the other end of their respective hallway. Idiots. The most inefficient surveillance possible in a corridor. Clearly the boss was going more for quantity over quality, of he’d have some mercs with half a brain. It was all too easy for her to sneak up behind one of the men as he meandered away from her, covering his mouth and nose with a hand and wrapping her arm around his throat. Increasing the pressure on his windpipe, she watched as he spent a few moments struggling and flailing, before the oxygen deprivation was too much and he fell limp. She set him down silently before turning to sneak to the corner again, waiting for the man to approach.

He was the unlucky one, earning a fist directly to his nose before she grabbed his head and rammed it down into her knee. Finishing him off with a blow to the side of the head, she watched as he too fell limp and collapsed. After dragging the two into the storage room she’d exited from, Natasha carried on, intent on remaining as silent and invisible as possible.

It was slow going, remaining unseen and ensuring there were no alarms raised. She needed to keep the bodies out of sight, which were steadily piling up, while remaining out of sight and sound herself. There had been some close calls and possible dangers, but she’d managed it so far. It was nearly a half hour of searching and attacking silently before she found the right area of the building.

Not only had security increased, but there was the faint scent of blood in the air. Something that only sent Natasha’s instincts haywire, pushing her forward. Taking out merc after merc, hiding the bodies, moving onwards. Attack, hide, and repeat.

Finally, she caught sight of a blood smear on the wall.

Following the trail, it wasn’t long until Natasha reached a large room with a sunken area in the middle. No doubt one of the baths that would be so unused, considering the building’s current occupants. Why the bloodtrail had lead her here, Natasha wasn’t—

Oh my god.

The water wasn’t water anymore. It wasn’t straight out red, but there was more than enough of a tinge to be able to guess just how much blood was in there. Too much. Far too much for a pool that size. Her heart constricted at the sight, hopes fading that Clint could possibly still survive. No one could survive that, could they?

She had to know. Even if it meant killing every single fucker in that building and carrying her partner’s body back home.

Turning away from the sickening sight, Natahsa pressed onwards. The room she guessed he was being kept in wasn’t far off, the smears of blood on the door giving it away.

Thanking the fact that she’d had the sense to snag the keys off one of the guards, Natasha unlocked the door and took the briefest moment to peer inside before she hurried in, thankful that it was empty. Empty, except for one body. Slumped in the corner on the ground in an alarming pool of blood.

She couldn’t remember shutting and bolting the door behind her, or crossing the room. The next thing she knew, though, Natasha was kneeling beside her partner, not caring that he shoes were covered in blood, not giving a shit that her hands were stained with red the moment she touched him. He was so still she wasn’t even sure he was breathing—

A low, gurgling sound left Clint’s throat, followed by a shallow breath. Of course. The guy was too stubborn to die.

How he’d survived, though, was completely beyond the woman.

“ Clint.. Jesus Christ what the fuck did they do to you.. “

His shoulder seemed as though someone had tried to cleave it apart, crudely bandaged to keep the blood loss down. Not enough, though; his skin was a horrible shade of white, his skin cold to the touch. As she turned him over, Natasha caught sight of the other major shock; a huge wound on the man’s hip, starting at his ribs and spreading way too far. It was getting harder to keep a lid on her anger, but for now, the man needed her.

“ Nat… “ Talking seemed like such a struggle for the man, his chest heaving as his head lolled onto his shoulder. Eyes fluttered open to meet hers, unstable as all hell, but the Clint Barton she knew was still in there. Natasha needed to move fast, though, and she certainly did; she quickly propped the man up against the wall and begun unwinding the bandages around his shoulder, separating the useless scraps from the half-decent rags she could still use. “ .. You’re okay? They—They told me.. “

" Thought you were smarter than that, Barton. Hold, on, this is gonna hurt. " She barely gave him time to grit his teeth before she retied one of the better pieces of shitty bandages around his shoulder, ignoring his hisses of pain and pulling the material as tight as she could. It wasn't the best, but Nat knew how to dress a wound like that in the middle of a red-zone. It would keep his shoulder together long enough to get them the hell out of there. Wrapping the material around his shoulder time after time after time, as tight as she could manage, Natasha could almost deal with the fact that some asshole had tried to cut her partner’s arm off. Almost. A low growl of frustration left her as she tied the bandage in place and moved onto his hip. Christ, the bandaging on that was even worse.

"Not Barton. Not-- Turner. They never broke me. Phil'd be proud," He babbled, voice rough and low and morphing into a yell. Natasha grimaced, muttering quiet apologies as she tugged the bandages at his side tight causing him to writhe and arch in pain. He was a mess, a total and utter mess, the bastards had outright butchered him like a cow. All the blood in the pool outside made sense now. How in the hell her partner was still breathing she had no idea. Moving fast to stop the flow of blood that had started up again, Natasha rewrapped the bandages around Clint’s abdomen as tight as she could manage, ignoring his groans and gasps of pain.

“ Not surprised, the only person who has a chance of breaking you is Fury. “ She murmured as she tied off the bandage, worried at the sight of fresh blood spotting the material. It didn’t seep through, though, nor did it spread too far along the bandages. She’d given him time, hopefully enough to get him the hell out of there. “ Bought you a gift. “

Natasha shrugged the case off her back, setting it on the ground and opening it to reveal Clint’s bow. The quiver came off next as she set that down too, watching some light return to Clint’s eyes at the sight of his weapons. She knew what they were to him, and how lethal they were in his hands. If they were going to get out of there alive, she was going to need his help.

“ You think I could get my eye in the sky for a bit out there, partner? “

“ I thought you’d never ask, sweetheart. “

\--

As much as the redhead had taken care of as much as possible on her way in, something had still raised the alarm. Not long after the two had made their way out of Clint’s holding area had they been greeted by the sound of boots thundering through the hallway. Natasha had moved fast, helping Clint to wedge himself behind a set of storage boxes before swinging herself up into the rafters.

Before the team of no less than eight thugs with guns even realized they were nearby, Clint had sent an arrow through someone’s eye. Trying not to pay too much heed to the hiss of pain as he reached for another arrow, Natasha used the moment between Clint’s shots to swing down, launching herself at a man feet first to hit him in the face. He fell back into another merc, the two tumbling over in a tangle of limbs and weapons, while Natasha let go at just the right moment to land in the middle of the now depleted group of enemies. The sound of an arrow lodging itself in the throat of the man to her left was far too satisfying as Natasha turned her attention to the man to her right, taking advantage of the cramped area of the hallway to lash out, her hand wrapping around his throat, the momentum of her movement striking his head on the wall behind him.

It was good, to work as a team together again. To flow together, to be able to read each other. Clint had taken such a hand in her training since he’d brought her back to SHIELD that they flowed together better than most agents could after years and years of work.

But it was only two of them against a terrorist army.

Natasha spent as much time in close range as possible, drawing the attention away from Clint and towards herself. He had been through hell already, god only knew how much more he could take if they decided to focus on him. But it came with a price. A split lip, a cut in her gums, her mouth filling with blood. A bullet graze to the thigh. A shot to the arm, the pain exploding just above her elbow, lancing through her limb, white hot and awful. A laceration to the side, blood oozing through her catsuit. Strike after strike after strike slowing her down. Making it harder to get her partner the hell out.

There was no choice, though. Natasha had sworn to herself she would get her partner out alive.

Once they were out of the building, it wasn’t hard to make a break for it. There may be countless of those bastards, but they’d all headed inside the moment the commotion started. The blood loss was starting to get to her, and everything was mildly fogged in her mind as Natasha dragged the half-conscious Clint off the premises, heading to a little shitbox of a car she’d stolen and set up before scouting the building. It wasn’t much, but it sure as hell would get them to the extraction point where she knew Agent Hill would be waiting for them with her team.

“ Almost there, Hawk. Hold on. “ Natasha murmured as she pushed her partner into the passenger seat, trying not to be too concerned by the way he was murmuring deliriously under his breath as she hurried around the car and practically fell into the driver’s seat.

They weren’t out yet, though. And there was no way in hell Clint could possibly drive. Taking out her com and pinning it between her shoulder and her ear as she fired up the car and sped off as much as her fuzzy mind could allow. Faster, in fact. Chances were not open to the pair of them, not with her wounds and Clint’s struggle to remain conscious, not to mention the blood was beginning to seep through his bandages again. Her field med work had been good, but not that good.

“ This is Agent Romanoff. I’ve got him. Heading for the extraction point. Have a medical team standing by. “ She barked into the com as the car skid around the corner. Clint’s eyes were beginning to flutter weakly, his breaths coming in shorter bursts. Without waiting for an answer, she let the phone slide off her shoulder as she reached out, pressing down on Clint’s hip wound. The agent cried out from the pain of the sudden pressure, but Natasha ignored it, pressing harder against the bleeding.

“ Don’t you give up on me, you asshole. “ She hissed as she maneuvered around another corner. Clint gave a sort of pained chuckle in response, glancing at her through half-lidded eyes.

“ Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart. I gotta see that beautiful face in the morning, don’t i? “ The voice was weak, the pain was evident, but there was that same underlying drawl in his tone that calmed Natasha to a certain degree. Clint may be half-dead after going through hell, but he was still fighting in all the ways he knew how. Even if that meant sassing her whenever he got the chance.

The last corner seemed too far away from the awaiting extraction team, but Natasha pushed on anyway, shaking her head to clear the daze that was beginning to descend upon her. It wasn’t much further. She’d make it. She had to.

Of course, she did. If she wanted to, Natasha made it through anything.

Skidding to a half in front of the team, Nat dragged herself out of the car and stumbled around to the other side, using the hood as a support with one hand while the other was gripping onto her laceration. Never mind the bullet wound and grazed. Those could be dealt with later. First, to get Clint to safety.

Hauling him out of the car was almost too much for both of them, but somehow they managed it together.

Maria Hill was waiting and, bless her, she had a group of medical staff beside her, waiting for her say so. As the pair of them approached, the two met each other’s eyes, a moment of understanding passing between them as Clint pushed himself off his partner, giving her a gentle shove in the direction of the awaiting agents. A nod from their CO and the medical staff leapt into action, supporting her towards the awaiting quinjet.

Natasha was close enough, though, to hear the tell-tale ‘Ma’am’ leave Clint’s lips before he dropped his bow to the ground with an echoing clatter. Natasha didn’t need to turn to know Maria would catch the man if he fell, giving her a reprieve of sorts. Enough time to get her head back together while medical patched them both up before she returned to her partner’s side.

Because she sure as hell was not going to leave Clint to deal with this nightmare on his own.


End file.
